November 16, 2020

BW Media Spotlight’s Best Of Year 11

November 16th, 2008. As I was recovering from my first set of hospital stays that introduced me to Crohn’s Disease I was surfing the net finding something to do until I could get back to work (I’m guessing I didn’t have the horrible YouTube backlog I do today) and came across sites like Comic Coverage, Slay Monstrobot Of The Deep, and the still active Siskoid’s Blog Of Geekery. This was my introduction to blogging and it so drew me in that I would make comments so long that I decided I should just make a blog of my own. On the aforementioned date BW Media Spotlight went live with the first post saying positive things about a show I hate, showing that quality of work is not equal to one’s enjoyment of it, my guiding principle as a reviewer and commentator. I can complain about what’s in the work, especially when it comes to quality of adaptation, even when it’s good if I feel it’s doing something wrong and I can admit it isn’t within my tastes but I can still attempt to judge the work. You just need more salt to take it with.

While I don’t always have the time to read the various active blogs that got me into blogging (these were just my first introduction to the blogging world) due to all the various projects I attempt to work on today plus life issues I do try to make this site something worth reading. In the eleventh year of BW’s existence that hasn’t been easy. First I’ve had to push back against a rising tide of fear and hatred on the internet that have induced rages of suffering your average Sith Lord or Adams Family member can only dream of (and even Gomez would want to hit the breaks on this year), then lost time to get my computer replaced and set up, and then try to find the energy to keep up with everything. 2020 has sucked eggs and few would disagree. Of course a BW year starts on November 2019 so somewhere in this chaos there had to still be a group of articles I still think are some of my best work and may end up being referred to time and again in what remains of this site’s life. (That’s not cryptic. Nothing on this Earth lasts forever.) So I went through the list, picking out the ones that still stand out in my mind, re-read them to confirm that, and plopped it into the list below. Here’s what I consider the best of the previous year as we head into Year 12.

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November 16, 2020

BW’s Art Soundoff 2020 #10: A Cluttered Schedule

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November 15, 2020

Jake & Leon #474: New Publisher, Same Issue

We had this discussion with Axel Alonzo and C.B. Cebulski. Look how that turned out?

I haven’t read up on Marie Javins’ prior works, though I know she’s been with DC for a while as she’s popped up in comics I’ve reviewed. However, I won’t celebrate a new editor-in-chief or publisher until I see the course correct back to what made me a DC fan until recently. I think we got burned enough on Marvel with Joe Quesada, Axel Alonzo, and the current stories from C.B. Cebulski and Sana Amanat (the latter brought in by current publisher Quesada to remake the Marvel style into a “lifestyle brand” as they’ve promoted it) to not immediately jump for joy when there’s a regime change. Let’s see what she does first.

There’s no Clutter Report this week, but tomorrow’s Art Soundoff will go into that as well as the weird posting schedule coming up this week. After last week I need to give myself a slight breather. Problem is tomorrow is BW’s anniversary, there’s a new miniseries I want to do an episode one review of, and a comic series ending this week so my plan of only doing Art Soundoff while I otherwise take a break is not likely. So instead Monday will have the aforementioned Art Soundoff and the usual Best Of post, Tuesday or Wednesday will be the pilot review while the other day is the last issue of Robotech II: The Sentinels, and the rest of the week will be the Daily Video type posting. Comic reviews will return hopefully next week and I hope to get back into the groove with the Art Soundoff v-logs this week as well so next week things will be back to normal. Again, I’ll explain more in Monday’s v-log. Have a good week, everyone!

Posted by on November 15, 2020 in DC Spotlight, Jake & Leon and tagged , , , , , , , .

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November 14, 2020

Saturday Night Showcase: Daleks! (Time Lord Victorious)

Big Finish’s news announced that “Time Lord Victorious will tell a new and untold story, set in the Dark Times near the start of the universe, when even the Eternals were young. Following several Doctors across space and time as they defend their home planet from a terrible race, this is a story like no other.”

TARDIS wiki entry on the series

While not the first time a story has been created to cross all available media (there was also SyFy’s Defiance, where a game was tied into the show and would have been the first of many such projects, and it was the original intention of Transformers’ “aligned continuity” and the Star Wars writers are trying the same stunt with their “High Republic” idea) this one offers us an animated webseries, so I can discuss it on Saturday Night Showcase. Daleks!, possibly inspired by a series of comics in TV Century 21 magazine in the 1960s but that’s only a guess, follows the Daleks in their conquest of whatever is going to tie into this series. Time Lord Victorious seems to only take part in the spinoff media–books, comics, Big Finish audio dramas, VR games, an interactive event in the UK, and this web series. So whether or not this is canon I guess is up the showrunners.

Episode one finds the Daleks seeing the Archive, a collection of great knowledge. I don’t think it’s the same as the Library from the 10th Doctor. The only 10 Doctor episode that seems connected to the event is “The Waters Of Mars”, while “Planet Of The Daleks” apparently plays into the next episode. The show is done in CG, which is at least a step up from previous online Doctor Who stories (even Scream Of The Shalka was less animated than anything Filmation haters complain about), though some have noted that fans using Blender have produced equal or better quality work with a one-person creator. But did they have Nicholas Briggs altering his voice to play numerous Daleks with their own unique speech pattern and personality? Look, at this point I don’t expect quality animation from the BBC. None of their web shows, CG specials, or animated recreations of lost episodes have exactly been award winning animation, so I’m settling for the story. This first episode does at least give hope for that.

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Posted by on November 14, 2020 in Animation Spotlight, Saturday Night Showcase, Television Spotlight, web series and tagged , , , .

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November 13, 2020

Batman: The Legacy Of The Gray Ghost

Ask me what my favorite episode of Batman: The Animated Series (and its two rebrands, The Adventures Of Batman & Robin and The New Batman/Superman Adventures where it merged with Superman: The Animated Series) and it would be tough for me to answer. For one thing I haven’t seen the show in years and for another there were so many good episodes I could list some of my favorites but not my absolute favorite or the one I would consider the best of the show. Ask Owen of YouTube channel Owen Likes Comics (strange that so many of his videos I’ve featured here at the Spotlight haven’t even been about comics, but shows and movies based on them) and he would tell you “Beware The Gray Ghost”, a season one episode that brought Adam West back to the Caped Crusader for the first time since Super Power Team: Galactic Guardians, only this time working alongside him as Batman’s inspiration. In a sense.

The Gray Ghost was inspired by the pulp heroes that in turn inspired Bob Kane’s concept and Bill Finger’s design of Batman and the early stories he was a part of. The oblivious fiancé and carrying a gun slowly disappeared but the other ideas remained in the character’s core conception. By bringing Adam West in to voice the character however the show went beyond how it usually uses famous actors in their role. They were all actors who could do good voice acting but they all added something to the likes of the Mad Hatter or Two-Face. West brings along the history, having played the role in the popular 60s TV series that brought Batman and Robin out of obscurity better than the serials had as well as two different animated shows, Filmation’s The New Adventures Of Batman as well as the Hanna-Barbera Superfriends/Super Powers Team. (Which makes that two times West took over the role from Olan Soule, the second time having Soule transfer over to Professor Stein, one half of Firestorm.) In this video Owen goes over the story of the episode and how the inclusion of West makes a good tale of Batman’s childhood hero and partial inspiration (sorry, Zorro) into a great episode.

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Posted by on November 13, 2020 in Animation Spotlight, DC Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , .

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November 13, 2020

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Scooby-Doo #51 (DC)

“Where did I leave my hippie and his dog painting?”

Scooby-Doo #51

DC Comics (October, 2001; as posted to comiXology December, 2014)

COLORIST: Paul Becton

LETTERER: Jenna Garcia

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Harvey Richards

EDITOR: Joan Hilty

“The Revenger”

WRITER: Terrance Griep, Jr

ARTIST: Karen Matchette

SEPARATIONS: Digital Chameleon

“Scare Wear”

WRITER: Barney Topper

PENCILER: Dan DeCarlo

INKER: Dan Davis

SEPARATIONS: Zylonol

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Posted by on November 13, 2020 in Animation Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged , .

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November 12, 2020

Another Second Chance For Scrappy-Doo

I know, I already posted a video recently defending Scrappy, did an Art Soundoff this year defending Scrappy, and make a Jake & Leon comic where Scrappy gets payback on James Gunn for writing him as the villain in that terrible live-action movie. However, Scrappy is becoming Superman for me in that when I see a video defending him from the dark and gritty attackers I have to promote that sucker. Scrappy-Doo wasn’t the problem with the direction the franchise took, and in fact may have been the reason the franchise lived as long as it has.

This time the defense comes from YouTube channel Second Chance. In this episode from July he takes an analytical look at the history of Scrappy-Doo, the evolution of the franchise, and the rise of Scrappy hate that affected not only the internet but Cartoon Network itself. Also, I learned a few things that I hadn’t before.

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Posted by on November 12, 2020 in Animation Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged , , .

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